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Leonardo Meira

Canção Nova Newsroom with material from Bulletin from the Press Office of the Holy See. (Translation into Portuguese by Canção Nova, into English from Portuguese by the editor of this blog.)

Pope Benedict XVI responded to seven questions in a program from Italian state television RaiUno, Good Friday. The special edition of the program named “The Pope Responds” and was unprecedented in the history of the Papacy.

First question-children and suffering

was formulated by a 7 year-old Japenese girl, named Elena,  on the meaning of pain based on the life and teachings of Jesus, with the backdrop of the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Asian country. Daughter of an Italian father, Elena was in Japan during the earthquake that killed many children and thus she was shocked. “Why should I have such fear? Why should children have such sadness? I ask the Pope, who speaks with God to explain this to me” she asked.

The Pope responded with docility to the question of the girl, saying that he also asks questions like this and we do not have the answers, “but we know that Jesus suffered like you, innocent, that the true God who shows himself in Jesus is by your side. That seems very important, yet we do not have the answers, sadness remains: God is on your side be confident that this will help you. And one day we can also understand why it was so. At this point it seems important to me that you may know, ‘God loves me’, it also seems that may not know me. But on the contrary, he loves me, is on my side, “he said.

Benedict XVI explained to Elena that one day it will be possible to understand the that sufferings were not in vain, empty, but that behind them is a good design of love. “Assure yourselves that we’re with you, with all the Japanese children who suffer, we hope to help you with prayer, with our actions and be assured that God will help. We pray together so that, upon you, the light may come as quickly as possible. ”

Second question-body and soul

Made by an Italian mother named Maria Teresa, who since Easter 2009, cares for a child in a vegetative state. She asked the Pope if her son’s soul left his body, since he is no longer conscious, or if it is still with him. “Surely the soul is still present in the body, “replied the Pope, making a metaphor with a guitar whose strings are broken, so that they cannot  sound – the same way, the instrument’s body is fragile, vulnerable, and the soul can not “sound”, but remains present.

Third question-religious persecution

Came from a group of seven young Christian students from Baghdad, Iraq – a region that has suffered several attacks againstChristians in recent months and became the land of martyrdom.”We Christians of Baghdad, persecuted like Jesus. Holy Father, in your view, how we can help our Christian community to reconsider the desire to emigrate to other countries, persuading her that to leave is not the only solution?”

The Holy Father has revealed that he prays every day for Christians in Iraq, suffering brothers and sisters of all the Christians, for which it is necessary to do everything possible to remain in their own land. In this context, Benedict XVI stressed that people and institutions that can do something for the Christians in Iraq must do so in fact, citing the example of the Holy See, that remains in constant dialogue not only with Catholics but also with other Christian communities and also Muslims. “We do work for reconciliation, understanding, also with the government, because the problem is a society deeply divided, torn. One must reconstruct the awareness that, in diversity, everyone has their own place and acommon history. Be aware of our prayer. ”

Fourth question-Jesus teacher of peace

Bintu, a Muslim woman from the Ivory Coast, a country at war, tellsthe Pope that Christians and Muslims have always lived in harmony in their country, but the current political scene sows division anddiscord. “Jesus is a man of peace. You, as an ambassador ofJesus, what would you advise for our country?”

“This shows the true face of God, that violence never comes from God, it never helps to produce good things, but is is a destructive mode and is not the road to exit from difficulties. Therefore, God is a strong voice against all types of violence. And this dear Lady, is the true message of Jesus: seek peace with the media of peace and let of go of violence,” he stressed.

Fifth question-resurrection

An Italian man asked the Pope what happened to Jesus in the space of time between the death and Resurrection. “Once the the prayer of the Creed said that Jesus after death, descended into Hell, also can one think that something like this will happen also to us after death and before going to Heaven?”

In accord with the Successor of Peter, one should not interpret the descent of Jesus to Hell as a geographical journey, as from one continent to the other. Before all it is a journey of the soul. Even the that the sould of Jesus corresponds itself always to the Father, it may be always in contact with the Father, at the same time this human soul extends itself to the ultimate confines of the human being. The Lord goes to encounter the lost, those that already ended their Earthly journey.

“The efficacy of the Redemption does not being in the year zero or 30, but goes also to the past, embraces the past, all men of all times. The man by himself cannot arrive at the stature of God. Therefore, the descent into Hell is an essential part of the mission of Jesus, of his Redemptive mission and does not apply to us. Our life is different, we are already redeemed by the Lord and we will arrive at the face of the judge after death, under the gaze of Jesus and this gaze through one side will be purificator and on the other, will make us capable of living with God, of living with the Saints, of living in communion with our loved ones that preceded us,” responded the Pope.

Sixth question-glorious body

Another Italian man asked the Pope on the significance that the resurrected body of Jesus did not have the same characteristics of the one before. “What exactly is the significance of the glorified body? And the resurrection, for us will it be also like this?

The Pontiff made clear that one cannot define the glorified body because it is beyond our experience. However, the signs can be remembered that Jesus gave on this theme: The first is that the tomb is empty. In this sense Jesus does not allow his body to corrupt, showing that also the material is destined to eternity and assumes a new condition of life. The second point, therefore, is that Jesus does not die again, he is beyond the laws of biology, of physics, because the dead submit to these. Then it is a new condition, a great promise for all of us that there will be a new world, a new life, the path to which we are walking.

In these conditions, Jesus let’s himself touch, eats with his own, but this is beyond the biological conditions of life. He is not a ghost, but a true man, that lives a true life, but a new life. “In the Eucharist, the Lord gives us his glorified body, he does not give us flesh to eat in the biological sense, he gives Himself, ,this newness that He is, enters in our being, in our person, and touches us interiorly with his being, of whatever for that we can allow ourselves to penetrate by his presence, transforming through is presence. It is an important point, because thus we are already in  contact with this new life, this new type of life. I think that this aspect of promise, of reality that He gives himself to me amd bring me outside of me, up high, is the most important point: One does not treat as memories things that one cannot understand, but to be on route to the newness that begins always anew in the Eucharist.

Seventh question-Mary

The last question, made by the presenter of the program, Rosario Carello, the Holy Father speaks on the dialogue between Mary, John and Jesus on the cross. Carello asked how to understand the words “This is your son” and “This is your Mother.” What is the meaning of having been pronounced in that moment and what is the meaning also today. After this, the presentor questioned if the Pope felt in his heart the desire to renew a consecration to the Virgin in the beginning of the new millenium.

Benedict XVI stressed that the words of Jesus are over all a very human act. In the East at that time, a woman alone was an unthinkable situation. Later, Jesus trusted his mother to John in order that she may be sure. “This appears to me very beautiful, very important, that before all of the theology we may see in this the true humanity, the true humanism of Jesus, ” he said. However, such gesture is not said in respect only to that moment, but all of history. In John, Jesus trust the Church and its members to his Mother and at the same time, the Mother to us. Throughout history this was concretizing each time again with the depth of conscience of which Mary is a true mother for all Christians, as the spread of shrines show and the devotion disseminated in all the world.

For those that defend the “lack of biblical foundation” for the Marian devotion, the Pope said” “Here I will respond with St. Gregory the Great: with a growing reading of the words of Scripture’ this is developed into reality, growing and always more in history this word develops. And we can with great confidence see this Mother. On the other side, it is worth stressing also that the Mother expresses also the Church. We cannot be Christians alone, with a Christiantiy constructed according to my idea. The Mother is the image of the Church, of the Mother Church, and trusting ourselves to Mary we should trust ourselves also to the Church living the Church being Church with Mary.”

With relation to the renewal of the consecration of the world to the Virgin in the beginning of the new millennium, the Holy Father remembers that the Popes such as Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II made a great Act of Trust to Our Lady, very important before humanity and Mary herself. “I think that now it would be important to interiorize this act, of allowing ourselves to penetrate of realizing it in ourselves. I think that the great public act was made. Perhaps one day it may be necessary to repeat it, but in the moment it appears to me more important to live it, realize it, enter in this trust, in order that it may be really ourss. The common trust in Mary, the allowing her to penetrate for this presence and to form, to enter into communion with Mary, makes us Church, makes us together with Mary truly this spouse of Christ. Therefore, in the moment there will not have the intention of a new public Act of Confidence, but I would like to invite to enter in the trust already proclaimed, in order that it may be really lived by us each day and thus grows a Church really Marian that is Mother, Spouse and Daughter of Jesus.”

The Program

The Pope response, was a special edition of the program “His Image-Question on Jesus” in which the Pontiff clarified the questions formulated by persons in general, not necessarily Christians, on the Catholic faith and the figure of Christ-to which the Pope already dedicated two recent works of the series Jesus of Nazareth and a third is in preparation-Good with some theses of human life in the actual world, affected by natural disasters and religious persecutions.

The question were formulated to the Holy Father through a video message that was retransmitted in a monitor installed in his Library of the Apostolic Palace, where the taping of the interview on Wednesday April 20 took place. The transmission through RaiUno began at 14h10( Rome time—9h10 Brasilia Time.)

translated from Portuguese